Thursday, June 11, 2009

I have no time for people with double standards. That puts Terry Corcoran near the top of my list of people for whom i have no time, and even less respect. In today’s article (below), Terry is taking a shot at Lisa Raitt and her taped claim that “money” is the simple solution to Canada’s isotope crisis.

This "only money" argument gives Terry Corcoran license to bemoan the fact that (apparently) Ottawa has pumped $30 billion into AECL and taxpayers have received virtually no disclosure from Ottawa on AECL’s finances, which Terry argues is in keeping with the disclosure standards of Uzbekistan Securities Commission.

He also wants taxpayers to get upset over pumping $30 billion into AECL over several decades with little to show for it?

Why do Terry Corcoran’s statements of today only serve to highlight the hypocrisy of his blind support for the income trust tax, whose central premise of tax leakage was “proven” by 18 pages of blacked out documents that even the Uzbekistan Securities Commission would find unacceptable? And somehow 2.5 million Canadians losing $35 billion into an open manhole is something to be glossed over, but all taxpayers losing $30 billion (apparently) is an outrage. How do you spell “double standard”?

The barriers to Isotopia

Terence Corcoran, Financial Post Thursday, June 11, 2009

Of all the things Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt had to say in her accidentally taped conversation with an aide, the most alarming may well have been her analysis of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's isotope fiasco. "You know what solves this problem?" asked Ms. Raitt, rhetorically on the brink of educating her aide in the ways of federal politics. "Money. And if it's just about money, we'll figure it out." The aide, being only 26 years old, would not know that Ms. Raitt was about to step into the biggest open manhole in Ottawa, the AECL money pit.

Money has never solved AECL's problems, and never will. The present value of all federal cash thrown at AECL over the decades exceeds $30-billion. As for AECL's isotope operation, numbers are hard to find thanks to opaque federal reporting standards. The Uzbekistan Securities Commission wouldn't approve AECL's annual reports. It would appear, though, that AECL's isotope business, the crown jewel of Canada's non-energy nuclear industry, is a giant money loser, with Ottawa subsidizing isotopes that are used by medical service providers in the United States and elsewhere.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Seems a good example of feigning a concern for taxpayers. Seems a good example of a typical news hound that glosses over important issues and just has to get on with the next issue. I suppose the reason that newspapers and the main television networks are losing viewers is because of the plethora of examples such as this. There's no credibility when so called journalists, like the weather forecasters, tell us that the sun will rise tomorrow and will then also set as well. Day in, day out. Past doesn't matter. Let's move on.

CANADA CANNOT MOVE ON until there is a complete unveiling and rectifying of the Harper/Flaherty Income Trust Tax that fleeced savers that WERE consumers, investors that WERE integral to the continuation and development of Canadian businesses and every taxpayer that counted on their taxes being utilized for some greater good - like our social programmes such as healthcare and CPP . The Income Trust 'CONTINUING BETRAYAL' by every political party, while they ACT so worked up about how to fix and dice the pension problem, without fixing the Income Trust ****up, shows just how incompetent and totally unworthy of support any of them are.

Politicians don't fix anything - they break what they shouldn't and fix what was not broken in the first place. The media is brain dead for the most part.

It is quite possible that a bunch of old fart , coupon clipping folks with too much money were just not "sexy" enough to warrant a career altering decision.

It turns out that we were the one`s to pay the ultimate price for a show of decisiveness by a bunch of incompetent politicians who are out for only themselves as Lisa Raitt so candidly put it.

What has happened to our political system anyway when these guys in the Ottawa will not even take the time to review the issue on which they vote -- my own Conservative MP told me to my face that the individual MPs do not have the time to research any given bill & have to rely on the Minister for direction.

Unfortunately , the assumption here is that the Minister is the brightest bulb on this issue.

EVENTS

Income Trust Halloween VigilThanks to all who participated in both the Ottawa and Calgary vigils to mark the anniversary of the announcement.

WE"D LIKE SOME ANSWERS

As you well know, the ‘income trust thing’ has grown beyond the
question of whether fair taxes are paid on income from trusts. It’s
become a giant dirty snowball, and as it rolls forward it accumulates
more and more bulk. There are so many unanswered questions. Let's list a few and invite our "Accountable" government and our free press to provide some much-needed answers.

It is said “Trusts are inefficient use of capital. Why?” Two
related questions are ‘Whose money is it, anyway?’, and ‘Do Canadian
investors have a free and efficient market?’

How can information that is already in the public domain at SEDAR
make for a state secret? How could such information be used to harm
the Canadian national interest? And who would cause the harm?

Why won’t the Canadian media investigate the falsehoods and
misrepresentations told by the Minister of Finance to a committee of
Parliament? Was the Minister in contempt of Parliament?

Why won’t the Canadian media report (a) government tax revenues
gained from BCE in 2006 when BCE was a corporation to (b) government
tax revenues that would be gained in 2007 from BCE, if BCE had been
allowed to proceed to a trust, and (c) government tax revenues that
will be gained in 2007 from BCE, when BCE ownership has been carved
up as 45% foreign ownership and 55% large Canadian pension fund
ownership?